


(so) Rise From The Ashes

by mydetheturk



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Imperial Agent Storyline Spoilers, Smuggler Storyline Spoilers, Spoilers, injuries resulting from torture, listen its the Imperial Agent, mentions of torture, the agent's day is Always Bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22310788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydetheturk/pseuds/mydetheturk
Summary: Corellia, a beautiful trade hub, is the center point of a war. A cross-faction interaction could swing things one way or another - if they didn't already have goals of their own. A smuggler and an agent run into one another during an air raid, taking shelter in the same alcove. One's actions will affect both of their lives, in ways that neither of them have foreseen.Luckily, the Force is on his side. Now if he could get his crew to believe him.
Kudos: 6





	(so) Rise From The Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> You might recognize these guys from some of my other works, and there's gonna be more to come. Slowly, but it's coming!  
> Again, there's gonna be spoilers for both the Smuggler and the Agent storylines. They're on Corellia, its the nature of the game.  
> But enjoy!  
> A huge thank you to my friend [Quan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chautauquan) for beta'ing this mess. Quanfish, you're the best.
> 
> Also, the working title for this was "Corellia Sux"  
> yes. With an "x"

Corellia was once a beautiful, gleaming planet that one could safely say was a central hub for commercial shipping and all-around travel. Being located at a crossways between a few major hyperspace routes would do that to a planet. Now, however, that blessing was a curse. War ravaged the once-gleaming city-planet between near-daily attacks and nightly bombardments. Corellia was a rough planet to be assigned to, but that didn’t mean there weren’t people on both sides of the war – the Imperial invaders or the Republic that had come to Corellia’s defense – that were inured to the ravages of war. Corellia’s once-gleaming spires now ruined and destroyed left those people unaffected. They’d seen the same thing happen to other planets time and again.

Cipher Nine had gotten used to warzones and worse during his time as an Imperial Agent. Cipher Nine had spent much of his time on various battle-scarred planets and often they were as bad as Corellia, if not worse. He also had other priorities and largely no oversight. Between dealing with the imminent dismantling of Imperial Intelligence and the Star Cabal debacle, Cipher Nine had his own priorities. Dropping a building on himself so he could fake his death to throw Hunter’s people off his trail.

It was to find Hunter so he could _kill the man_ , but Cipher Nine was confident he could do it.

Once he’d had a chance to re-bandage his ribs with the final roll of kolto-soaked bandages Lokin had – quite literally – thrown at him. Getting tortured had done a number on them, and Cipher Nine, thanks to dropping a building in the middle of a sector in Correllia that was primarily filled with criminals, had a chance to catch his breath.

He was hiding in a sizeable overhang built by rubble a few blocks from where he’d razed the building. In the back corner, he was breathing hard, desperately trying to catch enough breath so he could find a more secure place to re-bandage his ribs before going on to his next objective point. He couldn’t face off with Hunter and his cohort without doing so.

On the opposite side of the war but in the same sector of Corellia, a smuggler Captain and his copilot were picking their way through the half-destroyed block. Quin’cie Vonn was currently on a mission to find more information on the infamous Voidwolf. His movements betrayed his history of dodging around battlefields, of wars both won and lost. In the decade and a half since his Exiling from the Jedi, he’d seen his fair share of warzones much like Corellia. When he’d still been a Jedi, he might have been infuriated by the destruction, but now he was more tired in regards to the mess than anything, and far more focused on his own trouble. The Voidwolf was the current cause of his ire, having manipulated Quin’cie into doing dirty work for the Empire. The Imperial had earned Quin’cie’s wrath, and the smuggler was in a bout of pre-takedown errands.

The destruction around Quin’cie and Bowdaar had Quin’cie muttering about just how _easy_ it would have been to smuggle anything on planet – blasters preferably, since quality weapons were difficult to get ahold of, but medicines were also always a good second choice. Someone always needed it, after all, and Quin’cie always kept a small supply on him. He never really knew when he’d need it himself, and while Corso, Risha, Aethelstan, and Guss liked to ask him all manner of questions about why he did things the way he did, Akaavi and Bowdaar understood that there were things that you just _did,_ things that made you who you were.

Things that were built into your core.

Quin’cie Vonn might have masqueraded as a ruthless captain, but under the ruthlessness that he’d cultivated to keep himself alive, there was a compassionate streak half a parsec wide. If he hadn’t had it, there was probably no way the kids would have stuck around, much less essentially collectively make him their father.

Later, when Risha asked him what the Force he was thinking, he’d attribute what had happened to that compassionate streak when he and Bowdaar had ducked under some rubble to avoid an aerial bombardment. Quin’cie stared at what he could only assume was an oblivious Imperial wheezing at the back of the rubble while Bowdaar made some snuffling noises because of the dust kicked up from the shaking.

A violent explosion from just a block or two over had Quin’cie swearing and ducking further into the rubble while Bowdaar let out a low rumble of protest at having to duck down further.

Cipher Nine finally registered what was making his sensors go haywire, flinching violently as he startled back into the corner. He was slow to pull out his blaster pistol, and it wavered even as he panted weakly as he aimed it at the intruders into his tiny hideaway. His assault blaster was on his back and it just _hurt_ too much for him to try to get it, much less be able to _use_ it. The blaster pistol would have to be enough of a deterrent against the intruders.

Quin’cie didn’t let it faze him. He’d startled the Imp, so it was well under the Imp’s purview to draw a blaster pistol on him and Bowdaar. Ignoring the blaster pistol wavering slowly between himself and Bowdaar, Quin’cie took in the sight of the Imp. He genuinely looked like someone had tried to drop a building on him and had damn near succeeded. There was rubble in the Imp’s hair, he was covered in soot and dust, and he looked like someone had put him through a wringer a few times over. One of his eyes was taking on an impressive purple pitch already and from the way his breathing sounded to Quin’cie’s untrained ear, he probably had cracked – if not broken – ribs, and more than one.

Quin’cie didn’t _want_ to do what he was about to do. There was really no telling _what_ the Imp would get up to if Quin’cie helped him. It could be bad or worse if Quin’cie let this Imperial get away.

But something was telling Quin’cie that he’d need the Imperial to be healthy, at some point. Quin’cie would never, in his entire existence, forget the feeling of the Force, and how it was ripped from him. This, though, _this_ felt like the Force was gently nudging him into helping. He knew, from his experiences a lifetime ago, that the Force worked in mysterious ways, and it had to understand something that he didn’t. It had to. It was the only way Quin’cie could feel even remotely okay with it.

It was that feeling, and that feeling only, that of the Force, that had Quin’cie pulling out a small kolto probe out of his pack and oh so carefully stepping over to the Imp and placing the probe within easy reach of the Imp and backing away slowly, his eyes never really leaving the blaster pistol that was trained on him. At Bowdaar’s questioning noise, Quin’cie shook his head. He wasn’t sure how to explain it to someone who didn’t have an innate connection to the Force. In all likelihood, there wasn’t going to be an easy way to explain this _or_ a way to explain it that sounded at all like Quin’cie hadn’t lost his mind for a few minutes. He knew it’d work out eventually – he just had to trust in the Force.

Cipher Nine eyeballed the intruder with suspicion and an intensity he usually reserved primarily for Sith who were making his job _difficult_ in ways that he greatly disliked. He assumed they were smugglers – possibly the ones after Grand Admiral Kirill if the internal Intelligence memo was to be believed. Cipher Nine promptly decided that the smugglers were the _Navy’s_ problem, and shakily reached out and tapped the apparent kolto probe that the human of the two had placed by him while maintaining his grip on his blaster pistol with his other hand. It was still wavering slightly, and he could barely maintain focus on the two smugglers between him and the exit.

Thankfully, the kolto probe proved to be exactly what it had appeared to be, and it got to work, gently spritzing Cipher Nine with kolto and doing tiny little loops around him. It wasn’t much, but Cipher Nine supposed it would work in a pinch. It would do until he could find himself a more secluded spot than ‘pile of rubble near an active warzone’ to re-bandage his ribs in.

Thanks to the kolto probe, Cipher Nine’s breathing slowly evened out a little, losing some of the wet sound. He slowly lowed the blaster pistol as the pain lost some of its edge.

The blaster wasn’t _quite_ put away, but Quin’cie took it as a win anyway. Of course, he generally considered ‘not getting shot’ as a win in most situations, and typically tried to avoid it when he could.

“Thank you,” the Imperial rasped, much to Quin’cie’s surprise.

And there was a _rasp_. The Imp’s collar was too high to see most of it, and the lighting and the angle weren’t great, but Quin’cie could just see scarring that started on the Imperial’s chin and spread downwards beyond his jawline.

“Uh… you’re welcome?” Quin’cie finally offered.

Cipher Nine gave him a tight little nod, and settled, determinedly ignoring the two smugglers while the kolto from the probe finished seeping into his systems. After a few minutes, once the warmth of the kolto had turned into a bit of a chill as his body finished processing it, Cipher Nine carefully pushed himself to his feet, drawing the smuggler’s attention back to him. They’d been staring out at the buildings across the way, keeping an eye for more errant missiles. Gingerly, Cipher Nine straightened himself out, taking a few deep breaths. It still hurt, but the pain was less sharp and was closer to the usual ache from his line of work. He’d be fine.

Probably.

At the very least, he could still do his duty and take out the Star Cabal and Hunter.

The broken ribs wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Cipher Nine wouldn’t _let_ them be too much of a problem.

He dusted himself off slightly, mostly smudging the soot and dust into his uniform. It would do, he supposed.

Sliding past the two smugglers, Cipher Nine nodded. “Good luck. Perhaps your… _good will_ will work out in your favor,” he rasped.

“Working out for you right now,” Quin’cie responded without much thought or heat.

Cipher Nine merely shook his head and looked out onto the war torn city just as another missile barrage could be heard in the distance. He activated a stealth generator as he stepped out, full disappearing from sight into the smoke and haze in a matter of seconds.

It was a few more moments of rumbles and the sounds of buildings collapsing in the otherwise quiet night before Quin’cie looked at Bowdaar. “That was an absolutely terrible plan that I’m going to regret immensely, wasn’t it?” he asked.

Bowdaar made an agreeing noise, patting his captain on the back.

“Right. Great. Force knows what I’ve just unleashed unto the planet.” Quin’cie sighed, running a hand down his face. “C’mon, we need to find that informant.”

There was another rumble in the distance, but it sounded further off than before, so the two made their way out of the rubble and were soon back on the path that they’d been on before the air raid had started.

Quin’cie just hoped that whatever the incredibly battered Imperial was up to, it wouldn’t interfere with what he had planned for the Voidwolf.

**Author's Note:**

> and so off they go to murder their respective tormentors. Yay.  
> Quin'cie gets to hang out on his ship with his Wife and Kids and the Agent... uh... has a panic attack.  
> Title from "New Year's Day" by Black Veil Brides


End file.
